Epidemiology of injuries presenting to the accident centre of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Ghana
Loading...
Date
2019-06-28
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BMC Emergency Medicine
Abstract
Background: Injuries directly lead to 5 million deaths every year, accounting for 9% of all deaths worldwide. While
knowledge of the pattern of injuries is essential to plan health interventions to reduce the incidence of injuries,
these are not thoroughly described in Ghana. The aim of this study was to describe the epidemiology of injuries
seen at the Accident centre of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Ghana’s main referral hospital.
Method: A retrospective review of two-year records of all patients who attended the Accident centre of the
Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital from January 2016 to December 2017 was done. Data on the cause of injuries was the
main focus of this review.
Results: A total of 17,860 patients’ records were included in the study. There were 12,116 (67.8%) males and 5,744
(32.2%) females. The ages of the patients seen during the period ranged from three (3) days to 101 years. The
overall mean age was 27.9 (±18.2). Majority of the injuries resulted from road traffic accidents and falls, accounting
for 39.1 and 19.7% respectively.
Conclusion: Road Traffic accidents (RTA), especially motorcycle related, are a significant cause of injuries in Ghana.
Future studies should focus on interventions that can reduce the incidence of RTA’s to reduce the number of
injuries that present to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Injury, Accident, Epidemiology, Aetiology, Ghana